TV Crumbs.
It's the late eighties, it's six forty-five on a Wednesday night and I've just seen a Borg ship smash through the Federation's defences at Wolf 359. Only the USS Enterprise stands in the way of the certain destruction of mankind and the newly commissioned Captain Riker is looking worried. Then the view screen changes and a familiar face appears:
'I am Locutus of Borg…'
I remember that being one of the best cliffhangers I've ever seen in anything ever. Tonight's Doctor Who topped it.
Really. I'm serious.
When the Doctor told us it wasn't an invasion, it was a victory and then the Daleks were dropped in as well, the teenager in me screamed so hard my head near blew off. Daleks. And. Cybermen! Like in the same programme! Waaaah! This was fan fiction being produced for seven o'clock on a Saturday night.
Given time to think about it, was it was good as Bad Wolf last year? Not sure - that had emotional resonance -- that was about the Doctor saving himself as much as Rose and Eccleston's performance was too big for the small screen. This was about the visceral moment, the reveal - it crucially lacked that secondary emotional resonance behind the usual chaos, except for the undercurrent that you know what might happen to you know who.
Much as I loved the teaser and the sense of doom it created across the story, for some reason it felt slightly tacked on, with photography that set it apart from the rest of the episode and a something else that was lacking in the opening few scenes. Almost as though the episode was near completion and the producers felt it needed an extra something. The real teaser could have ended the ghost appeared in the kitchen. But I'm production speculating. What I will say is that it was great to see some actual alien worlds for change and even I would rather have seen forty-five minutes of the Doctor and Rose exploring that magma planet than suburbia. Again.
The ensuing ten or so minutes felt a bit listless to me and designed to piss off the sections of the fan base who hate the kind of the thing they hate. Let's look at the elements - Ghostwatch, Eastenders skit and Derek Akorah, along with the Ghostbusters reference (and you just know they failed to get the rights to Ray Parker Jr) and the heartfelt chinwag in which Jackie told Rose that she's change. Although I was happy with the later, really about the only good things you can say about the Barbara Windsor moment eas that it made Dimensions In Time non-canonical once and for all and her celebrity friend Dale Winton wasn't propping up the bar with her. A delight I'm sure for 'Enders fans but gaaah for the rest of us.
Some random thoughts on Torchwood. I can't wait to see how they rationalise the fact that London Torchwood is evil and Cardiff Torchwood is good. Perhaps next episode the Doctor teaches them the error of their ways. The certain death of Freema Agyeman's character puts paid to the rumours of her being a companion (hah - The Sun -- nyer). I still think they're going to start afresh in the Christmas special (and hire Laura Fraser but I digress). Tracey-Ann Oberman pitched her performance perfectly and it would be shame if she left us next episode - Yvonne Hartman came across as crosshatched product of the DNA of Liz Shaw and the Delgado Master (wouldn't it be a turn up if she was the latter? Although she hasn't asked anyone to obey her yet, give it time). I couldn't make out if that was a viper from Battlestar Galactica in the main hanger behind the TARDIS and Sutekh's tomb or an X-Wing. Also, who's Alonso?
I do think there will be many deaths next episode and by the end the series will have said goodbye to the Tyler clan. It feels like the end of their arc especially if the inevitable happens which is a shame because we'll see the last of Camille Coduri. Will Rose actually die? It's not unknown in drama for a character to be narrating from the grave and it doesn't seem likely that she'd be speaking of her mother who was given the name at the start of the episode. My theory is that she's talking about Rose Tyler euphemistically. Given that conversation with her mother about her changing, and not being Rose Tyler any more, my feeling is that what that actually means in the death of the happy go lucky Rose Tyler she used to be - rather like the change Ace went through in the Virgin New Adventures which continue to have a strong influence on the series.
[Although wouldn't it be cool if she regenerated - a side effect of absorbing all that power at the end of last series, so that there's a new actress playing Rose? Well alright maybe not.]
Alfred Hitcock once tried to boil down his success and he said that he was just really good at creating tension and shocks. So if some people are presented at a restaurant table and show a bomb ticking away underneath before it explodes it creates tension. If you simply blow the thing up without a reveal then it's a shock. The brilliance of the episode is that it managed both -- showing the Cybermen early on undercut the apparent fun and games with information that the audience would certainly be aware of pre-episode what with the trailers and what not. Then the reveal of the Daleks and their exterminate was the shock. Had we guess that the ghosts would be the former? Probably. But the sheer number of them and their appearance in suburbia taking humanity hostage cranked things up somewhat. Had we thought that the latter might be in that sphere? Possibly. But the bringing together of the two was viscerally realised. I'll say it again. Fantastic.
[Anyone wondering what Elton from Love & Monsters is doing through all this? Probably hiding behind a paving slab....]
I don't know what else can be said until the story is completed next week. That's going to be a busy episode isn't it - I peaked at the trailer and there's going to be a mess of stuff to cram in. Looking again at that cliffhanger I can't imagine what they'll do next year. Nothing short of the Master or the reconstitution of Gallifrey or another regeneration or a multi-Doctor story (we should start the campaign now) or all four can top this ...
